Angela wrote:
I don't think three years is excessive. It might seem a long time since Wikipedia is a relatively young project
It seems like a long time not just because Wikipedia is young, but because realistically, it is a very long-term commitment relatively to the contributing lifespan of quite a few Wikipedians. Turnover and attrition will happen among arbitrators as well.
but the experience which arbitrators will build up during that three year period will be invaluable in assisting them in making good decisions.
Sure, IFF they are actually developing experience in the arbitration process during that period.
The combination of these factors leads me to conclude that the issue is not with the three-year term per se, but that arbitrators need to recognize whether they are serving effectively and be prepared to step aside if not, even if it's before their term ends. I think there is an obvious problem when an arbitrator who has not really been active in the process at all still has two years left to serve, and based on the past year there is no reason to seriously expect this arbitrator to begin participating. No experience is being gained by anyone that way.
If arbitrators resign responsibly when they recognize that they won't be able to serve effectively, they can be replaced and the process will function more smoothly. I commend Martin and Camembert for taking this step. In many systems, elected officials may resign before the ends of their terms, and a mechanism is available to replace them. We did this earlier this year with Jwrosenzweig and Raul654.
I understand that going through election cycles too often can be a little draining. To be honest, I don't care that much whether interim appointments are handled by special election. I would be fine with letting the Board of Trustees appoint interim arbitrators, and just adding these positions to the regular election at the end of the year.
This is similar to the model in my own local jurisdiction. We have elected judges, but frequently there are mid-term vacancies (resulting from resignations due to retirement, advancement, other career opportunities, and occasionally death). Such vacancies are filled through appointment by the executive branch of government, until the next election. I haven't observed any significant problems with this system, unless you simply have philosophical concerns about whether judges should be elected at all.
--Michael Snow
Right, it isn't doing things poorly that is the problem, but doing nothing at all, but still filling the slot. So we wait and wait for someone who will neither propose anything nor vote for or against others proposals.
Fred
From: Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:04:13 -0800 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
I think there is an obvious problem when an arbitrator who has not really been active in the process at all still has two years left to serve, and based on the past year there is no reason to seriously expect this arbitrator to begin participating. No experience is being gained by anyone that way.
In this circumstances, why don't we have a means for replacing arbitrators? There's absolutely no reason why said arbitrator should be allowed to continue serving - he wasn't elected, he's done basically nothing in months, and he's been approached about the matter several times, with, as far as I can see, no response. While we've just had elections, now seems to me to be the perfect time to do something - there's a couple of people who only missed out by one or two votes who would be quite capable replacements.
-- ambi
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 04:43:40 -0700, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Right, it isn't doing things poorly that is the problem, but doing nothing at all, but still filling the slot. So we wait and wait for someone who will neither propose anything nor vote for or against others proposals.
Fred
From: Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:04:13 -0800 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
I think there is an obvious problem when an arbitrator who has not really been active in the process at all still has two years left to serve, and based on the past year there is no reason to seriously expect this arbitrator to begin participating. No experience is being gained by anyone that way.
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Rebecca wrote:
In this circumstances, why don't we have a means for replacing arbitrators?
This is entirely possible. I doubt if we need a formal mechanism for this, I can just do it if there seems to be reasonable consensus that it makes sense.
There's absolutely no reason why said arbitrator should be allowed to continue serving - he wasn't elected, he's done basically nothing in months, and he's been approached about the matter several times, with, as far as I can see, no response. While we've just had elections, now seems to me to be the perfect time to do something - there's a couple of people who only missed out by one or two votes who would be quite capable replacements.
I agree with this completely. Will you research for me which arbs have been least active, and I'll email to ask them about their plans for the future, and then make some decisions. There's no indignity in people stepping down because they won't have time to deal with it.
The workload of arbitration can be daunting, and when some arbitrators don't have time, the others have to take up the slack. So it makes sense for the committee to be filled with active members.
--Jimbo
In message 41C7E70D.80000@earthlink.net, Michael Snow wikipedia-ihVZJaRskl1bRRN4PJnoQQ@public.gmane.org writes
Angela wrote:
I don't think three years is excessive. It might seem a long time since Wikipedia is a relatively young project
It seems like a long time not just because Wikipedia is young, but because realistically, it is a very long-term commitment relatively to the contributing lifespan of quite a few Wikipedians. Turnover and attrition will happen among arbitrators as well.
It's not an unprecedented period of office in online fora. The "open" members of the UK Usenet Committee (the body which supervises the uk.* newsgroup hierarchy) is elected in thirds every year -- see http://www.usenet.org.uk/committee.html
Sometimes I have the sense that the current mold of arbitration committee has been decided upon as an ideal, stable, long-term solution for devolving authority to make tough decisions about problem users. Unlike wiki itself, the AC arrangement is not scalable, save perhaps through making mediation (which can readily absorb new community members) better and more active.
If this has not been decided, and even the AC members are actively thinking about ways to improve on the current system in scalable wiki ways, then the length of the terms doesn't matter so much. If the AC members are setting out to design a system that will become the only recourse for serious conflict resolution, and if being an arbiter will give them more of a say in how this system is structured than the average community member will have, then it would be a tad worrisome.
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:04:13 -0800, Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
It seems like a long time not just because Wikipedia is young, but because realistically, it is a very long-term commitment relatively to the contributing lifespan of quite a few Wikipedians. Turnover and attrition will happen among arbitrators as well.
I think that a good half of all admins (including many who would never volunteer or campaign for such a post) would make fine arbiters. Just as adminship is no big deal, and involves taking on extra work for the community, it might be useful if Arbitration posts were "not such a big deal," and presented as posts that need filling for the community to run well.
To address one of Angela's points, these posts should not be ones for which one aggressively campaigns for reelection, perhaps not even posts for which one stands for reelection. If they are now being fought over, rather than so undesirable that Jimbo has to twist a few arms to fill seats, then perhaps we should address that issue, rather than opting to hold elections as infrequently as possible.
On a tangent : the community *does* need more ways to acknowledge the contributions of devoted community members. This should not be confused with the need for an effective AC.
We can establish several panels, for example of 5 arbitrators each; have cases decided by arbitrators selected by the parties (one party selects one, the other party selects one, the two selected select the third); or establish what amounts to a small claims court. So lots of scalable options.
Fred
From: Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com Reply-To: Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 04:46:43 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
Unlike wiki itself, the AC arrangement is not scalable, save perhaps through making mediation (which can readily absorb new community members) better and more active.
On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:34:11 -0700, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
We can establish several panels, for example of 5 arbitrators each; have cases decided by arbitrators selected by the parties (one party selects one, the other party selects one, the two selected select the third); or establish what amounts to a small claims court. So lots of scalable options.
Sounds great. I had the impression that this was explicitly not desired... +sj+
+sj+
I think we've always known that every arbitrator participating in every case would eventually become unwieldy. Different options raise different questions about practicality and comfort for the parties. For example, should a decision by a small panel be appealable to the whole Committee? Or should the parties be able to strike an arbitrator on motion? Or should be abandon election and simply select arbitrators at random from the administrators (with the understanding that some might refuse or not work out)?
I think a lot of heat, read emotion, is being generated by the feeling that we have instituted a creeping caste system. You can see this in parties changing their focus from the issues raised by their own behavior to concerns about the arbitration process. The problem for the existing arbitrators is that having been presented with a mess, they must find some remedy that restricts its scope. Which comes down to bans and partial bans and other restrictions on editing.
In many cases users try to solve problems by upping the ante, trying essentially to overwealm, necessarily calling forth some remedy which restricts.
Fred
From: Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com Reply-To: Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:36:04 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:34:11 -0700, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
We can establish several panels, for example of 5 arbitrators each; have cases decided by arbitrators selected by the parties (one party selects one, the other party selects one, the two selected select the third); or establish what amounts to a small claims court. So lots of scalable options.
Sounds great. I had the impression that this was explicitly not desired... +sj+
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Fred Bauder wrote:
In many cases users try to solve problems by upping the ante, trying essentially to overwealm, necessarily calling forth some remedy which restricts.
Ah yes, the rise of "arbcom lawyers". My impression is that it would help the arbitration process for the AC to be seen as somewhat unpredictable, a la irascible courtroom judges - revert an edit or mouth off on an evidence page, boom, banned for a week with no appeal, irrespective of the merits of the overall case. After reading some of what gets thrown in front of the AC, I can see why the "contempt of court" concept was invented! :-)
Stan
I've been doing a bit of that, but it seems to up the ante and open the floodgates rather than awe and silence.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:53:52 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
Fred Bauder wrote:
In many cases users try to solve problems by upping the ante, trying essentially to overwealm, necessarily calling forth some remedy which restricts.
Ah yes, the rise of "arbcom lawyers". My impression is that it would help the arbitration process for the AC to be seen as somewhat unpredictable, a la irascible courtroom judges - revert an edit or mouth off on an evidence page, boom, banned for a week with no appeal, irrespective of the merits of the overall case. After reading some of what gets thrown in front of the AC, I can see why the "contempt of court" concept was invented! :-)
Stan
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The sample size is pretty small, so hard to generalize, but I was struck by recent cases where temporary injunctions got people's attention, and other cases where people withdrew their complaints.
Can't be timid either - people have to know that upping the ante ends in the certainty of a permanent ban. I think it's safe to say that anyone engaging in that kind of behavior is not actually interested in building the encyclopedia, so what loss in getting rid of them?
Stan
Fred Bauder wrote:
I've been doing a bit of that, but it seems to up the ante and open the floodgates rather than awe and silence.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:53:52 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
Fred Bauder wrote:
In many cases users try to solve problems by upping the ante, trying essentially to overwealm, necessarily calling forth some remedy which restricts.
Ah yes, the rise of "arbcom lawyers". My impression is that it would help the arbitration process for the AC to be seen as somewhat unpredictable, a la irascible courtroom judges - revert an edit or mouth off on an evidence page, boom, banned for a week with no appeal, irrespective of the merits of the overall case. After reading some of what gets thrown in front of the AC, I can see why the "contempt of court" concept was invented! :-)
Stan
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It violates a principle, which originated with Stephen Gaskin, "Is it helpful? Is it kind?" Not nice to provoke people.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:28:14 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
The sample size is pretty small, so hard to generalize, but I was struck by recent cases where temporary injunctions got people's attention, and other cases where people withdrew their complaints.
Can't be timid either - people have to know that upping the ante ends in the certainty of a permanent ban. I think it's safe to say that anyone engaging in that kind of behavior is not actually interested in building the encyclopedia, so what loss in getting rid of them?
Stan
Fred Bauder wrote:
I've been doing a bit of that, but it seems to up the ante and open the floodgates rather than awe and silence.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:53:52 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
Fred Bauder wrote:
In many cases users try to solve problems by upping the ante, trying essentially to overwealm, necessarily calling forth some remedy which restricts.
Ah yes, the rise of "arbcom lawyers". My impression is that it would help the arbitration process for the AC to be seen as somewhat unpredictable, a la irascible courtroom judges - revert an edit or mouth off on an evidence page, boom, banned for a week with no appeal, irrespective of the merits of the overall case. After reading some of what gets thrown in front of the AC, I can see why the "contempt of court" concept was invented! :-)
Stan
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Sj wrote:
If they are now being fought over, rather than so undesirable that Jimbo has to twist a few arms to fill seats, then perhaps we should address that issue, rather than opting to hold elections as infrequently as possible.
I would say that the problem wasn't with them being fought over. I would say that most of the candidates chose to run out of a feeling of it being a necessity and valuable, not out of any actual desire to have the post.
The ugliness in the election was due primarily (imho) to problem users trolling and attacking the people who were running.
--Jimbo
Sj stated for the record:
To address one of Angela's points, these posts should not be ones for which one aggressively campaigns for reelection, perhaps not even posts for which one stands for reelection. If they are now being fought over, rather than so undesirable that Jimbo has to twist a few arms to fill seats, then perhaps we should address that issue, rather than opting to hold elections as infrequently as possible.
I for one am very willing to address that issue, but the mechanism seems alarmingly straight-forward:
1: There are people who believe Wikipedia is not working as well as it should.
2: Those people believe that other people are the problem.
3: Those people also believe that the ArbComm has the power to remove the people who are the problem.
Therefore, those people want to be on the ArbComm so that they can remove from Wikipedia the people who they believe are the problem.
As a corollary, some people believe that the wrong people are being punished (eg, themselves) and want to be on the ArbComm to protect those people from punishment.
Therefore, unless we find a way to make one of these premises untrue, ArbComm membership is desirable, and to be aggressively campaigned for.
Note that I believe #1 and #2 myself. #3 is untrue only in that the ArbComm acts purely as a judiciary, not an executive -- we judge those whom others bring before us, we don't bring charges ourselves. One could assume that an arbiter with an agenda might have friends who could be counted on to bring charges against the people the aggressive arbiter didn't like, so that separation of powers is not a particularly strong bulwark against abuse.
Is it just me, or has the Wikipedia just gone down?
Slim
It was offline for me a few minutes ago, I'll check again now.
From: slimvirgin@gmail.com Reply-To: slimvirgin@gmail.com,English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia offline? Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:05:41 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: from mc9-f31.hotmail.com ([65.54.166.38]) by mc9-s18.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6824); Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:15:01 -0800 Received: from mail.wikimedia.org ([207.142.131.234]) by mc9-f31.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6824); Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:05:49 -0800 Received: from zwinger.wikimedia.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])by mail.wikimedia.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D63D61158376;Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:05:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from rproxy.gmail.com (rproxy.gmail.com [64.233.170.192])by mail.wikimedia.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 723A2115832Ffor wikien-l@wikipedia.org; Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:05:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: by rproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id f1so137507rnefor wikien-l@wikipedia.org; Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:05:41 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.38.207.5 with SMTP id e5mr191729rng;Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:05:41 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.38.125.75 with HTTP; Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:05:41 -0800 (PST) X-Message-Info: jl7Vrt/mfsp3hzh1h+DSc8U5Z5e9GdZf X-Original-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Delivered-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com;h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:references;b=Abh8t9UZAZ54iZQvKODrHnOb5AjObFcHKxy4etFxqxkVozs1kSJ3ihz5eZ/chBPzFm+nfpepKgm8NrlrMyZjFZ/zW1OiZ1VJhQLpUGyCXz1am8dIhHvK1prHMltFVNuy4lgyHhOl5tn9bBqq7MTJHmrm92gWJ/TGu0I0Y0P+VDo= References: 20041221044144.362311AC02B8@mail.wikimedia.org41C7E70D.80000@earthlink.net742dfd060412230146323bfda2@mail.gmail.com X-BeenThere: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5c2 Precedence: list List-Id: English Wikipedia <wikien-l.Wikipedia.org> List-Unsubscribe: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l,mailto:wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe List-Archive: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l List-Post: mailto:wikien-l@Wikipedia.org List-Help: mailto:wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org?subject=help List-Subscribe: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l,mailto:wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org?subject=subscribe Errors-To: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org Return-Path: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Dec 2004 21:05:50.0183 (UTC) FILETIME=[2E40F770:01C4E933]
Is it just me, or has the Wikipedia just gone down?
Slim _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Whatever it was, it's okay now. For about 5-10 minutes, I couldn't get into any page, not even the main page.
Slim
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:05:41 -0700 Subject: Is Wikipedia offline? To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org
Is it just me, or has the Wikipedia just gone down?
Slim
slimvirgin@gmail.com (slimvirgin@gmail.com) [041224 08:18]:
Whatever it was, it's okay now. For about 5-10 minutes, I couldn't get into any page, not even the main page.
A hiccup in the upgrade to MediaWiki 1.4 beta, apparently - all should be fine now.
- d.